1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to translation of query and retrieval of multilingual information on the web and more particularly to a method and system for conducting a translingual search on the Internet and accessing multilingual web sites through dialectal standardization, pre-search translation and post-search translation.
2. Description of Prior Art
The World Wide Web is a fast expanding terrain of information available via the Internet. The sheer volume of documents available on different sites on the World Wide Web (xe2x80x9cWebxe2x80x9d) warrants that there be efficient search tools for quick search and retrieval of relevant information. In this context, search engines assume great significance because of their utility as search tools that help the users to search and retrieve specific information from the Web by using keywords, phrases or queries.
A whole array of search tools is available these days for users to choose from in conducting their search. However, search tools are not all the same. They differ from one another primarily in the manner they index information or web sites in their respective databases using a particular algorithm peculiar to that search tool. It is important to know the difference between the various search tools because while each search tool does perform the common task of searching and retrieving information, each one accomplishes the task differently. Hence, the difference in search results from different search engines even though the same phrases/queries are inputted.
Search tools of different kinds fall broadly into five categories, which are as follows:
1. directories;
2. search engines;
3. super engines;
4. meta search engines; and
5. special search engines.
Search tools like Yahoo, Magellan and Look Smart qualify as web directories. Each of these web directories has developed its own database comprising of selected web sites. Thus, when a user uses a directory like Yahoo to perform a search, he/she is searching the database maintained by Yahoo and browsing its contents.
Search engines like Infoseek, Webcrawler and Lycos use software such as xe2x80x9cspidersxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9crobotsxe2x80x9d that crawl around the Web and index, and catalogue the contents from different web sites into the database of the search engine itself.
A more sophisticated class of search engines includes super engines, which use a similar kind of software as xe2x80x9crobotsxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cspiders.xe2x80x9d However, they are different from ordinary search engines because they index keywords appearing not only on the title but anywhere in the text of a site content. Hot Bot and Altavista are examples of super engines.
Search engines further include meta search engines, which consist of several search engines. A user using a meta search engine actually browses through a whole set of search engines contained in the database of the meta search engine. Dogpile and Savvy Search are examples of meta search engines.
Special search engines are another type of search engines that cater to the needs of users seeking information on particular subject areas. Deja News and Infospace are examples of special search engines.
Thus, each one of these search tools is unique in terms of the way it performs a search and works towards fulfilling the common goal of making resources on the web available to users.
However, most of these search engines are limited in their scope in so far as most of these search engines cater to the needs of the English speaking community alone and help in the search and retrieval of monolingual documents only. Most of these search engines require input in English and search web sites that have information available in English only. In other words, most of the search tools cater primarily to the needs of the English speaking Internet user. This attribute renders these search tools almost useless to the non-English speaking Internet users who constitute as much as 75% of the Internet user population. This non-English speaking user community is unable to search English web sites since it cannot adequately input phrases or queries in English. Consequently, this community of users is unable to benefit from the search tools and web documents available in English. This is a serious drawback, which has not been addressed by any of the existing search engines.
Likewise, the non-English speaking Internet users also create web sites to store information in non-English languages. This rich source of information is not available to query by English oriented search engines. As a result the English speaking population remains deprived of the resources available in the other languages of the world for the same reasons as discussed above.
As an example, when preparing a Chinese To-fu dish which calls for xe2x80x9cshrimp caviare,xe2x80x9d a search was made on a super engine, such as Altavista.com to check the availability of xe2x80x9cshrimp caviarexe2x80x9d anywhere in the world. A search using Altavista.com under xe2x80x9call languagexe2x80x9d revealed no matching results under either xe2x80x9cEnglishxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cChinesexe2x80x9d setting. A search was then made for the English term xe2x80x9cshrimp caviarexe2x80x9d at China.com, which is a Chinese search engine, but to no avail. Subsequently, the term xe2x80x9cshrimp caviarexe2x80x9d was looked up in Chinese to find its Chinese equivalent. The Chinese equivalent thus found was xe2x80x9cxiazixe2x80x9d (meaning, xe2x80x9cshrimp roexe2x80x9d). This word was then used for making the search on China.com and yielded as many as twenty-four hits.
Thus, a need exists for a translingual search engine with a built-in translator. Such a system should be capable of standardizing the query or phrase input by the user to a commonly known word and then translating the same into a target language prior to a search for sites that satisfies the search criteria. Such a system should be capable of inputting the translated keyword into a search engine of the target language to yield search results. Further, for convenience of the user, the system should be capable of translating the search results obtained in the target language back into the source language.
Such a system will help the users to transcend language barriers while making a search on the web. Such a system also obviates the need to manually and unsystematically find out the translated equivalent of a word in another language prior to conducting a search in that language.
Such a system will go a long way in transcending all language barriers and improving inter-human communication. This will not only pave the way for a healthier interactive environment and cultural exchange but also help in an optimal utilization of available resources on the Web.
There are some web sites, which offer translation services, but such sites merely create an illusion of multilingual search and information retrieval. What these sites offer in effect are machine translation services. Machine translation services are services that provide a literal translation of the words queried by users. Such translations are often found to be unintelligible and incomprehensible and as a result fall short of fulfilling any meaningful objective of users.
Systems have also been developed which attempt to transform a query input by the user in the native language also referred to as source language into a resulting language also referred to as a target language and provide as many translations as possible in the target language. The idea is to have such a transformed query ready for use in any of the available information retrieval systems.
However, this system is similar to the other search tools discussed earlier that fail to placate the long standing need for a one stop shop for users to dialectally standardize a user query to a more commonly known word and then translate this standardized word intelligently to the target language prior to search. Such a tool being also capable of conducting a search in the target language through the input of the translated keyword into a search engine of the target language and producing search results, and even generating translations of the search results in the source language.
One object of the present invention is to provide a method and a system that dialectally standardizes the keyword or query input by the user to a more commonly known and/or used term. Dialectal standardization is distinctly helpful because standardizing the word to a commonly known word insures that the search engine of the target language will recognize it.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and system that translates intelligently the standardized keyword or query input by the user in a source language into the target language.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide an option to the users to have the search results retrieved in the target language to be translated back into the source language.
A method for dialectally standardizing a query input by the user in the source language and then translating the standardized keyword to the target language and searching and retrieving web documents in the target language as well as providing translations of said search results into the source language.
In this method, the user first inputs a query in the source language through a unit such as the keyboard. This query is then processed by the server at the backend to extract content word from the input query. The next step takes place at the dialectal controller, which performs the function of dialectally standardizing the content word/words extracted from the input query. This insures that the keyword is standardized to a commonly known word/term. At this stage, the user may be prompted for some more input so as to refine the search or to perform dialectal standardization where the initial input phrase by the user was insufficient to perform Dialectal Standardization.
Thereafter, the dialectally standardized word is inputted into a translator to translate the dialectally standardized word into the target language. This process of translation that takes place prior to a search is known as pre-search engine translation. Following translation, the translated word is input into a search engine in the target language. Such an input yields search results in the target language that satisfy the search criteria. The results so obtained are then displayed in the form of site names (URL) on the user""s screen.
Once the search results are made available to the user, the user has a set of available options. The user may either browse the search results in the target language or request that the search results obtained in the target language be translated into the source language. The user may further specify whether the entire search results or just portions of it need to be translated. This can be done by merely highlighting the portions of the search results desired to be translated and then entering the appropriate command.
The user may also specify as to what kind of a translation is required by the user depending on his/her needs i.e whether a simple machine translation with reading aids will be sufficient or a more intelligible translation of the search results and the contents of those web sites is desired.
An alternative embodiment of the present invention may also be used with a query prompter on the server so that in cases where the initial query entered by the user is insufficient for dialectal standardization, more input is solicited by the query prompter from the user to help standardize the words into acceptable and known words in the target language.
One advantage of the present invention is to provide a method and a system that dialectally standardizes the keyword or query input by the user to a more commonly known and/or used term. Dialectal standardization is distinctly helpful because standardizing the word to a commonly known word insures that the target language search engine will recognize it.
Another advantage of the present invention is to provide a method and system that translates intelligently the standardized keyword or query input by the user in a source language into a target language.
Yet another advantage of the invention is that it provides an option to the users to have the search results retrieved in the target language to be translated back into the source language.
The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, which makes reference to the drawings.